Deadly Pursuit (SCVC Taskforce) (13 page)

She sure as hell didn’t like waiting for him to make the next move, but there was nothing she could do to preempt whatever he was contemplating. Cooper was embarrassed that everyone knew he’d slept with her. He’d very publicly deserted her. Nothing to preempt there.

But every time she got mad at him, she thought about Emilio’s threat and saw Cooper’s imagined blood on the snow, and then she felt guilty for being mad. Her brain spun in constant circles.

Ronni had gone grocery shopping at the corner convenience store and had entertained herself watching Rachel Ray and concocting imitation recipes, which she’d then offered to Celina. Wanting to please her friend, Celina tried a few things. Food was the last thing she wanted.

She queried Dyer
. Why hasn’t anyone called me with the fingerprint results?

Takes time. Prisoner rights and shit. Lawyer has to be present. Be patient.

She wanted to ask,
why hasn’t Cooper called?
but stopped her fingers before they typed. Instead,
she wrote.
What are you working on?

Officially?

Celina grinned at the screen.
Un-.

Meth.

Labs?

Crackdown here has generated a lot of lab startups in Mexico. Londano was one of the first to take advantage of that. His cartel is still active south of the border. Mules are lying low but still working. Using radio waves through cell towers to warn each other of trouble. I track them, I find him. Simple network analysis.

You think L’s out, don’t you?

Too risky not to believe.

Too risky was right
. He threatened Cooper’s life.

C can take care of himself. He’s not a blockhead like me. Except when it comes to you.

Celina sat up again.
What do you mean?

He didn’t fly all the way to Des Moines to arrest Jagger. Hawkins and Sanchez could have handled that alone.

Her heart picking up its tempo, her fingers skipped on the keys.
He came to see me?

No, John Deere tractors, blockhead.

Celina let go of a small laugh, but her humor faded quickly when she thought of her last conversation with Cooper. She’d fulfilled his fantasy during the night and then he’d left her.
He feels responsible for me because I was part of the team and I’m sure he enjoyed last night,
she wrote, her fingers shaking as she typed the next words
, but he made it clear there is nothing between us.

There was a long pause and then Dyer ended the conversation.
Girlfriend’s here for some afternoon delight. Gotta run. Or roll as the case may be.

Celina rolled her eyes. Dyer always called his wife, Eliza, his girlfriend. To keep things fresh, he always said. After ten years of marriage, it must have worked. The two still acted like newlyweds.
Does Eliza know about her?

Shhh. Don’t tell.
Celina could see Dyer’s thick eyebrows doing his Groucho Marx impression.
Stay safe.

She drummed her fingers on the table. Her suitcase sat on the bed, packed and ready to go, and she considered for the fortieth time that day whether to fly to California. There was no logical reason to do it. She didn’t have a position there and her apartment was sublet for the rest of the winter. She was stuck here in Des Moines whether she liked it or not.

All was quiet. Dawn McBroom was on duty outside her door and Mike Sugars was downstairs in the foyer. Thomas Hawkins had been across the street all day. Cooper hadn’t stayed but he’d left his teammate to guard her. She didn’t know whether to feel irritated or relieved.

No phone calls from Emilio. None from Dupé or Cooper. For several hours, she’d paced the floor, mad that she was so out of the loop. She’d tried calling Dupé. Her call was intercepted by the notorious Lana, who knew nothing about the fingerprint match nor did she seem to care about Celina’s situation.

Standing to stretch, Celina walked to the picture window, staring out at the low-hanging gray clouds. It was early evening, but streetlights buzzed to life and shadows hung over the street below. “This sucks.”

Ronni flipped off the TV, wandered over to the piles of photographs on the table. “I could drive you to HQ and let Forester baby-sit you.”

Celina gave her a
don’t even think about it
face.

“Why don’t you show me your pictures?”

For the next hour, the two friends sat on Celina’s couch and went through her collection of photographs. Cityscapes were mingled with portraits. A group photograph of the SCVC taskforce, glasses raised in a happy salute, fell out of a handful into Ronni’s lap.

She clucked her tongue. “That Thomas kid is a cutie. He do that Wheaties thing too?”

Celina stared at the picture, seeing only Cooper, his glass raised but no smile lit his face like the rest of the group. “I took this the day after I arrested Londano. Dyer’s missing.”

“The guy you were messaging? Who is he?”

Celina told her the story about Cooper, Dyer, and Valquis. At the end, a sadness hung over her like the gray clouds outside. As soon as the Londano thing was cleared up, she would go see Dyer. She’d bring him a bottle of his favorite whiskey and sit with him. Talk and drink a shot. Laugh a little. Take his picture.

Ronni yawned and started gathering up the photos. “I think I’ll make some popcorn and see if Mike wants any company.”

“I’m going to take a shower,” Celina said. “After I get out, I’ll make up a bed on the sofa for you.”

Ronni nodded, yawned again. “Deal.”

Celina dug out clean clothes from her closet and headed for the bathroom.

Setting the water as hot as she could stand, she washed herself several times with her favorite body gel. She scrubbed until her skin was rosy and her fingers were wrinkled. She washed her hair for good measure and then stood in the stream of water and tried to unwind. Her brain was as tired as her body and the thoughts and images had finally started to slow down a bit after bombarding her all day. She needed sleep, which meant turning them off. All of them. Even the sexy Cooper ones.

Hell with that
. He might have left her high and dry, but there was no turning off those. She wanted to remember the way he looked at her over dinner the night before. The way he’d held her while they slept. Her anger at him had faded throughout the day and been replaced with the sadness she felt every time she thought about the chain of events that had led her to this moment. There were so many things she wished had turned out differently. Dyer. Emilio. Cooper.

Dragging herself out of the shower, she dried off and smeared her skin with creamy lotion. The TV was back on in the living room and Celina could smell Ronni’s microwave popcorn. Suddenly her stomach growled. Wrapping her hair in a towel, she pulled on clean sweatpants and a T-shirt. Then decided to blow dry her hair. If she didn’t, it would be a funky disaster come morning. She had enough to face without bedhead added to the list.

After five minutes, her hair was still more wet than dry and her stomach was starting to hurt it was so empty. She gave her head one more all-over blast, straightened, and pushed the hair dryer switch to off.

She was running a pick through her hair when,
BAM
, something heavy thudded against the bathroom door. Startled, she dropped the pick in the basin. A rush of nerves tightened her stomach muscles.

“Ronni?” Instinct made her grab her gun. “That you?”

At first, all she could make out was the muffled sound of applause on the television set. Staring at the door handle, Celina pointed her gun at it. “Ronni!”

What sounded like the brush of an open palm on the wood filtered through. A hint of shadow danced along the crack at the bottom. She called Ronni’s name again and then yelled for Mike. Nothing.

Taking the safety off her gun, the trained FBI agent in her took over and squashed down the fear pulsing through her body. At Quantico, she’d favored obstacle courses over hand-to-hand combat, but at that moment, the cold, sleek metal in her hand felt as right as it ever had.

Slipping the lock off the door, she moved to the side and turned the handle. Slowly, inch by inch, she let the door creak open a crack…then another inch…

Ronni’s hand fell through the opening and Celina gasped. “Ronni.”

She threw the door open. For a second, Ronni stood suspended, the door no longer propping her up. Her eyes were wide, mouth opened slightly. She looked at Celina with her surprised face as Celina automatically scanned her body, looking for blood, a wound, anything that would tell her what was going on. “Ronni, what’s the matter?”

Her lips moved slightly. “Help me,” she whispered. The words bubbled out of her mouth on a faltering breath.

And then she fell into Celina’s arms. Her weight caused Celina to lose her balance, tumbling backwards and sitting down hard on her butt with Ronni in her lap. Celina’s back hit the side of the tub.

A knife handle stuck out between Ronni’s shoulder blades.

Celina’s hand flew to her mouth to stifle a scream. She scanned the room behind Ronni’s splayed feet, the gun following her line of sight. Popcorn lay in a trail from the bag where Ronni’d dropped it next to the bathroom door, through the living room, and out of Celina’s view.

The front door wasn’t visible. A good chunk of the apartment was hidden as well. But she knew without looking what had happened to McBroom, Sugars and Cooper’s partner, Thomas. What should have happened to her.

Frozen for a minute, her gaze slowly returned to the hilt of the knife. Carved from the antler of an elk, it was inlaid with ebony and silver. A collector’s bowie knife whose blade was now jammed up to the hilt in her friend’s back.

Celina checked for a pulse. Her fingers trembled so hard, she could barely find the slow, faint throb under them. Hugging Ronni to her, Celina rocked her for a second. Then she gently laid her on her stomach and rushed for her cell phone. Gun still sweeping the area, she dialed 911. Her voice sounded flat and calm as she reeled off the information to the operator, and stalked toward the door.

In the hallway, McBroom was out cold, but breathing. No blood or wound she could see. She rushed back to Ronni, ending the call with the 911 operator so she could hold her partner until the ambulance arrived.

“Celina?”

The man’s voice startled her and Celina jerked up her Beretta and aimed it at his face before recognition dawned. It wasn’t Emilio. It was a man who should be dead…Thomas Hawkins.

His gun was out and he was crouching, shifting his eyes from Celina and Ronni on the bathroom floor to the room behind him. His gaze swept over Celina again, holding for a long second on her shaking, gun-wielding hand. “Are you hurt?”

Relieved to see Thomas was alive, a sigh of relief escaped her mouth. She lowered her gun, looked at Ronni lying in her lap.
Don’t die.
“I called 911,” she said, but her voice sounded too soft, too calm. “McBroom is hurt too.”

Thomas leaned over, checked Ronni’s neck for a pulse. He disappeared into the living room. A few seconds later, he was back with the comforter off Celina’s bed. Celina and Ronni were suddenly covered with mandarin orange, marigold yellow and peacock blue daisies.

On autopilot, Celina helped Thomas tuck the edges around her, around Ronni, and around the handle of the knife. She knew they dared not move her or remove the knife.
Don’t die.
“What about Sugars?” she asked Thomas.

He ignored her question, scanning her face, checking her pupils like a doctor. “I need to know if you’re hurt.”

There was excruciating pain cramping her stomach, and like Ronni’s blood seeping slowly through the layers of her cotton comforter, it spread, lancing her heart and bubbling into her throat.
Yes, I’m hurt. I feel like I’ve just been drawn and quartered.

Swallowing hard, she forced her shallow breathing to deepen. Her trembling fingers threaded softly through Ronni’s apricot colored hair. Another crazy daisy in bloom.

“Did you see him?” Thomas asked. “Was it Emilio Londano?”

It was a ghost. A psychotic ghost from my past.

Over the next two hours, Celina would be asked about Londano ad infinitum by everyone from the lowliest rookies all the way up the chain of command to the head directors of the FBI and DEA. The only person who didn’t ask her if Emilio Londano had killed Sugars and left McBroom and Punto in critical condition that day in his second attempt to terrify her was Cooper.

When The Beast finally called her and confirmed what she already knew—that Emilio had escaped by using his twin brother as a decoy—he didn’t ask questions, only said the words she’d hoped to hear from him for a different reason. “I’m coming to get you.”

Chapter Eleven

FBI Headquarters, Los Angeles, California

“Agent Punto is still in surgery.” Thomas’s voice was calm and clear over the speaker phone. Cooper was the only one in the conference room that knew he was shitting bricks. “The knife punctured a lung, may have nicked her spinal cord. We’ll know more in a few hours. Agent McBroom was hit on the head and received a concussion. Could be severe. Again, it will be awhile before we know the extent of his injury.”